3 Days of a Slow Burn
by Tigerdust
Summary: Two Deans means trouble for Castiel, who is trying to forget as much of the past as he can in 2014. Everybody has more burdens then they care for anyways and sometimes a car ride can expose the deepest truth.
1. Chapter 1

"So, you gonna start lying now like the rest of us?"

Castiel smiles, that special turn of his head still a habit. "Can't see much to stop me from it if I want, but I haven't had anything to lie about. Things are grim enough without half-truths flying around everywhere."

Dean nods. "Really, so then you don't mind me asking what you think is so great about me?"

Cas merely smirks. "Which one?"

Dean tosses his hands in the air. "Either, but since I've pretty much gathered all I want to know from the now me, what about the past me?"

Castiel's smile faded a bit, thoughts bubbling around in his brain. "Might wanna pick out a different topic, Dean."

"You once told me abstaining is a form of lying."

Castiel simply shrugged, not able to refute the statement. They sat in silence for a long stretch of road, with nothing except Dean's taillight ahead of them and another taillight behind on a nearly abandoned stretch of road. Dean tensed a little in the shoulders after a few hours when the amphetamines started to wear off and Castiel began shifting a hint to the right.

"Say, Cas, maybe I should driving for awhile."

"Why? I just need a bit of a pick-me-up. Grab the flask attached to the backseat."

Dean took a sniff of the scuffed silver container after plucking it from a pocket in the back. "What is this?"

"One of the benefits of being the love guru. Kind of a token of appreciation."

"Yeah? Which gong did you pop off?"

Dean switched hands when Cas grabbed for the flask. "You don't really wanna know. I don't need angel powers to sense that."

"Hey, lets do us both a favor and lay off of the sauce while you're driving. Your human liver can thank me later."

Cas chuckled. "I doubt I have a liver left. You really want to drive this piece of crap car? I remember you were rather particular about the Impala."

"Lets just get something else in ya."

Castiel's voice dripped with innuendo that Dean promptly ignored. "And what, pray tell, did you have in mind?"

"Got any fruit or granola bars are anything in here? Haven't really eaten yet myself. Zacharias wasn't too helpful on rations."

Cas chuckled to himself. "Good idea. Just root around a bit."

After a few minutes, Dean came up for air sniffing a strange smelling orange. "I think this ones gone rotten, Cas."

Castiel grabbed it from his hand and took a large bite, rind and all with a satisfying squish. "Nah. Its got too much vodka in there to be rotten. Rind's got the bitters, juice keeps me buzzed."

"Another admirer huh?"

Castiel simply shook his head. "See, now thats what makes you different from the now you. Now you would've had me toss it over and taken a bite. You're just gonna sit there and stew and wanna give me a lecture. Its kind of flattering, really."

"Flattering? You're picking your brain cells off one by one and you're calling me flattering when I basically whip ya with words? I thought you knew better than this, Cas."

"What are you gonna do? Tell dad?" Castiel took a second to savor the joke he had made. "No, because you probably feel the same way that I feel now. Wouldn't be any different if you were in my shoes."

Dean couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Cas, give me the damn orange. Now I don't know whats going on, but there is something more screwed up in this future than just Sammy being a meat suit for the devil. You wanna tell me why we both seem to be so intent on killing ourselves?"

"It didn't start out that way. But I couldn't stop you from torturing every other demon we ran across. This was before the mobs started goin' after hunters and the last good ones, you have to understand. Bobby and Chuck were still kinda safe. Still signs of higher life...." Castiel trailed off, his knuckles going white as he gripped the wheel tighter and tighter.

"Cas, you don't have to..." Dean tried hard to diffuse the bubble of hurt and hate coming up in Castiel's chest.

"No, you wanted to know. Pass me back that orange."

"I ain't gonna do that."

"Seriously, or the pills. Don't care which."

"You've had enough, Cas. I'm doing it for your own good. Sloppy and drunk never won a hunt."

Castiel sniffed, his knuckles no longer white from answering the questions but white from trying to keep his hands on the steering wheel. "If there were any chance for survival, I wouldn't be going. And I don't blame you, not really. Just been biding my time."

"Cas, man, what are you trying to tell me? You want to kill yourself with these drugs or on a hunt, man? You know how dangerous that thinking is? Maybe you'd better let me take the wheel."

Castiel tried to avoid that bizarre look of remorse he was seeing in Dean's eyes. He hadn't seen it since the morning after Sam. He hadn't seen it since the first night Dean had come home just drenched from that first torture, like he was reteaching himself, demoralizing himself in some ways. He called it thinking like the enemy. Castiel wretched in the grass because of it, that's the day when the pills started.

"There are some things about this time you just can't understand, Dean. I'm useless. No more angel mojo, I'm pretty much all thumbs with weapons. I keep people distracted on sex and bits of philosophy I picked up. I'm not half the man I was or half the man I could be. The day I stopped being your conscience was the day the world ended."

Dean sat in silence, trying to let Castiel process. "You see, I let you go to Detroit and I saw your face when you came back to the motel room. And every day I drink and smoke and bury myself in females because I knew then I would never stop what was about to happen."

"But I can stop it now that I know."

Castiel shook his head, fingers trembling on the wheel as he began thirsting for his pills. "You can't unless you give a nod to Michael and I don't even want you to do that. Just do me a favor and don't promise me you'll find away around this for both of us. I'm up to here with false hope."

Dean had an urge to put a hand on Castiel's shoulder. When Castiel didn't back away, Dean left it there. "Listen, man, I know I haven't done anything yet but I wanna say I'm sorry. I'll find a way to finish this without this crap of a future."

Cas let out a weak smile. "Thanks, Dean. See? This is what I miss. This is nice, when we do the angel on my shoulder thing-even if we're just little guppies in a freaking big pond."

Dean pulled his hand away, back into his lap where he had placed the orange absentmindedly. "I hear that."

Castiel smiled again, if only slightly. "I will miss that one night of sex we had though."


	2. Chapter 2

Dean's foot slammed down hard on the passenger side of the car. Luckily, Castiel was driving. Otherwise there would have been at least a two-car pile up. And as miffed as present Dean was, there was no need to bring full Dean wrath upon his own head.

"Care to repeat that?"

"I don't think I have to." Castiel stated quietly.

"But I don't...."

Castiel shook his head. "No, you don't. You were more than clear it was because it was just us in the middle of nowhere."

Dean watches Cas' lip begin to tremble. "Is that when everything started going to shit?"

"You know, you might want to open your mind a little more, Dean. Nothing is that simple."

The growl in Dean's voice is evident, even more than normal. "Oh, you can bet I disagree."

"I know, that was always the trouble with you. You never followed the rules and all of us in your little entourage just bent to that. Never had the slightest inclination to stand up to you."

"Cas, we argued constantly at the start of this thing five...however many years ago." Dean was beginning to understand.

"I didn't always argue because I thought you were wrong."

"Cas, are you telling me..."

"We'll just drop it, okay? Now hand me my flask please."

"I told you no."

"Zacharias would be mighty pissed at me if I crashed the car. Well, he would have been I guess...."

"You're not gonna crash the car."

Cas nodded absentmindedly, his eyes concentrating on the road. "You're right, as always."

More damnable silence. There was nothing to see in the advancing mists of the morning. Just fires of torn down cities and hollowed out rest stops.

"Cas, was it the night Sammy said yes?"

Castiel's turn of the head, sharpness on the edges of his dulled-out eyes told the story for him.

"Cas, I'm..."

"Don't say you're sorry, I'm not. The angels went back to heaven that night as well. I would have been stuck alone and mortal if not for you."

"I used you, just like Zacharias did to me and Ruby did to Sam."

"Gotta disagree with you there, Sam. And I really think we should drop this."

More silence, advancing into daylight. Dean notices the crows feet and the haunted bags just under the sheen of drug sweat on Castiel's skin.

Dean tried, failing, to lighten the mood. "So, I must've not been any good if you're having three or four girls at once now."

Castiel merely shakes his head in response and sighs.

"Just don't crash the car or anything."

"You're probably gonna wish by the end of the day that I had."

"You were always pretty astute, Cas."

Castiel talked absentmindedly to no one. "Yeah. That and a box of mallomars cure the munchies."

Dean could see something working behind Castiel's eyes. Something dark and yet so familiar. Castiel hadn't thought about that night in year, he hadn't had to. He had pumped himself with drugs and women enough to forget most of the fragments of the way it had been. Like sand leaving his fingertips, the power had been. But that had been nothing like Dean, stumbling in with strong and heaving breaths.

_Castiel had been the only thing to intercept the rage and he had just laid there, quietly. Dean's fist colliding with pillows, throwing them to the ground. Dean's tears, rivers moving over his own like manic coughs of a scared and dying man. The scent of blood finally trickling from his knuckles, matching the scraped skin under Dean's nails when the mirror broke in a violent fit. _

_Being the warm body and the kiss, always soaked with alcohol. It wasn't a clean kiss. It was a kiss that shook the bed, sliced him down to the very core. There hadn't been enough time to breathe, Dean ripping clothes apart in every direction until there was nothing left but groans and indecent exposure. The sounds of springs giving way, the crunch of elbow falling into the floor. _

_Castiel can still see it in the moonlight. The confusion and despair slashed across Dean's eyes and his own heart. The feeling of never-ending punishment riding into ever pore and orifice available. Letting Dean take him, receiving and helping in the only way he could or want to. That final exhausted moment when power and pleasure were dispensed. _

_Those haunting sobs, the deep and shaking breaths cocooned and held together in a blanket._

"_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."_

Dean's voice breaks into the memory. "What are you thinking about?"

"Bad memories. You could just let me..."

"No, Cas." Its that same dark, commanding voice.

A thought trips a wire in the back of Castiel's mind. Is that the same voice he uses on the demons to reassure him? Is it the same voice that caressed Castiel and held him until the morning? He couldn't remember what the other voice sounded, wasn't sure he could ever remember how until this Dean had stumbled into the future.

"Why not? What have we got to lose?"

"You want an answer or an apology?"

"Neither, Dean. I've lost the will to accept them anyways."


	3. Chapter 3

"You never did much like silence." Castiel yawned a bit as the road seemed to stretch on forever. He was currently referencing Dean's inability to leave the knobs of the radio alone for more than five minutes in a stretch.

"Yeah, well, I've got some mental images in my head that I'd rather not have stuck up there."

"Imagining me naked's not all that bad, Dean."

Dean put his fingers through his hair, trying to think of a way to respond that would bring out another part of Castiel's dirty side. "I'm talking about Sammy."

Castiel looked ahead while he answered. "I knew that. I'm just trying to get you to relax."

"Trying to take advantage of me, Cas?"

Castiel smiled mischievously. "You might want me to. No going back once we get to Detroit."

"I miss you having a moped, Cas."

"When did I have a moped?" Castiel furrowed his brow.

"Figurative. When you were first trying out the cell phone thing."

Castiel nodded to himself. "Yeah. I had to adapt just a bit."

"Did a fine job of it. If I didn't know any better, I never would've guessed you were Michael's lackey once."

Castiel shook his head. "Never worked for him, just for someone higher up that was personally helping the big guy. And hey! I still got morals! I just like to coat them in Percocet and see what happens."

"Cas, you already know whats gonna happen if you take those pills?"

His smile didn't fade but the tone in Castiel's voice changed dramatically. "World's kinda funny that way, Dean."

"Yeah, its kinda funny, its kinda sad. The dreams in which you're dying gotta be the best you ever had."

"REM."

Dean muttered quietly, so as not to break the fog in the car. "I think I miss the days when you didn't get the song lyrics."

Castiel's hand shot out and covered Dean's when Dean reached for the radio knob. "I've heard enough static for one day."

Dean leaned back. "Sorry. I know, drivers rules."

Cas shrugged. "Its okay." I know what its like to not wanna be in your own head.

"No, Cas. I'm really sorry. I dragged you down with me, man."

Castiel licked his lips, trying to weight out the fuzzy words crawling along his brain. "I knew you were gonna be different from the moment we met after I pulled you out of hell. I sometimes just wish you'd never had to have been put in there. It was all too much for you. I should've spoken up earlier, maybe we could've avoided all this mess."

Dean reached over for Castiel's shoulder, speaking gently. "Hey, you didn't know what was going on. They put us all in a tunnel, you, me and Sammy, and we just got ruined is all. But we keep our heads together and there's nothing that we can't find worth fighting for."

Castiel's adams apple bobbed. "Like what? Like friendship or truth? Just look around Dean, I'm a medicated, not enough having the comfort of being fallen angel and you're out there torturing demons looking for your brother who is inhabited by the main demon."

Dean shook his head. "Looking at it that way won't get you anywhere good, man. Didn't I ever tell you that?"

"I surmised it. Your hand is pretty warm, too."

Dean shrugged. "Guess it is? You feeling a chill?"

"Part of the hazard of being a druggie."

Dean started running his hand up and down Castiel's arms. He was hesitant. If what Castiel had said was true, then they had seen each other's bodies pretty intimately before. He was unnerved by the circumstances, hell, he felt downright guilty. He would do anything to make it up to Castiel for the hell he was putting himself through.

"You might want to be careful, Dean. You don't wanna give me the wrong idea."

Dean's voice was heavy in his throat. "I'm not. I just..."

Dean's hand slid into Castiel's free hand. Castiel squeezed it before he realized what he had done. Moving the hand away, Castiel's eyes locked on the road. "Don't say your sorry. Nothing to be sorry for."

Dean's voice lowered. "Everything to be sorry for, Cas. Everything."

"Dean..."

"Shhh. I just got up enough courage to do this."

Dean slid over, Castiel aware of the shift in weight. His hands gripped the wheel as Dean held Castiel, hands running just under his shirt. Castiel's skin had a gummy, pale quality in Dean's hands that reminded him of plaster of paris. Just beneath the ribs though were the start of coarse muscles.

Dean nibbled just a hint on Castiel's neck, sending the ex-angel into a whimper. "You've gotta stop."

"I already broke your heart, Cas. This is the least I can do."

Dean's hands moved their way past the ribcage and down to the belt line. Castiel hissed as Dean's hands groped inside of his quickening bulge. Dean could feel the hard cock and half-full balls. There was a thickness to Castiel's cock that didn't quite match his own. He could feel the veins bulging under the pressure, the rising hardness of the mushroom head that made Castiel jump a touch when a thumb was run over it.

"Dean..."

"Shut up, Cas. I owe you this one."

Dean shifted back a bit to give his mouth a bit of an opening. Castiel's head titled to one side and he groaned quietly when Dean undid his zipper quickly with his teeth. Using his free hand to massage the cock free from its cloth cage, Dean found his head jogging along with the hum of the floorboards as he took Castiel's member in his mouth, already getting slick with pre-cum.

"We can't. We promised...ah."

Castiel tensed, trying hard to concentrate on the road and not the warm mouth pleasuring him in the way females never felt easy doing. Dean was strong, more aggressive, eager to satisfy. Even though Castiel felt he owed him nothing, this Dean was obviously trying to make up for a mistake while creating another very intense one.

Castiel did his best to check his speedometer. He had to try and keep some semblance of driving skills so the rest of the caravan would not get suspicious. Even though, Castiel rightly believed, this Dean would defend such an action. He missed that more than anything, even the selfish motives in the defense when they had been present.

The memories he had been trying to suppress came flooding back as he breathing hardened. Castiel squirmed, trying to give Dean more room. He remembered bad venetian blinds. He remembered searing pain and the sound of moving flesh. He remembered the feeling of humanity, the bruise along his back the next morning. The feeling of emptiness and the first bottle of pills.

But Dean was pretty good about keeping Castiel's head in the unfortunate present. Castiel knuckles turned bone white. He gave a shout right before he came, Dean pulling away just in time to see the geyser of cum begin shooting its first round over Castiel's shirt. Dean moved to block with his hand and it became entrenched in the sticky fibers.

Castiel's body loosened, soft and satisfied. He had been ashamed to admit how grateful he was for that. As much as Dean wanted to talk more, they had just approached the first first welcome sign for Detroit. He only had enough time to wipe off with a gun towel from the back and to tuck Castiel back in. Castiel wanted to hug and hold onto this Dean, but he knew it could never be. That never seemed to be his destiny.


End file.
